› added 11 years ago

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TIL that “Da Vinci’s Rule of the Trees” (“all branches of a tree … put together are equal in thickness to the trunk.”) appears to be true - but “looking at big trees, there’s thousands of branches, and it takes a lot of undergrads to measure it.”

Read more insidescience.org

via reddit.com

5Yp6D TIL during the Tokyo housing bubble in the 1980s, the combined housing value for all properties in Japan was worth four to five times that of the United States, and fifty percent higher than that of the rest of the world.
4anR TIL Baby’s can only see high contrast colors when they are born. When parent’s paint the baby’s room pastels they can’t see it.
VM45B TIL that stepping on a Stonefish, the world's most venomous fish, can result in needing crutches to walk for a month (if you survive the sting at all).
OGJya TIL when HOF Baseball player Don Drysdale passed away by heart attack in his hotel room, amongst his belongings was a cassette tape recording of RFK's final speech that Don carried everywhere he went. In that speech RFK acknowledged Don's 6th straight shut out game that he pitched that same evening.
ANWYd TIL "The Star-Spangled Banner" actually has four verses, although the second through fourth verses are not commonly performed.